It Is Not Just About the Dollars: Decision Making Part 2

Obviously, all of us have different ways of reaching decisions.  What we ultimately want is to land comfortably on one side of a debate -- stay or go? Travel or settle down? Delay or get moving? After much internal and external debate, I decided to take the year and transition to a new life and locale.

However, to reach the decision was for me a complicated process.  Once all the practical financial pieces were considered as well as the practical aspects of closing my practice, selling our home and all that, the real work began, the emotional work. I allowed the therapist part of my brain to contemplate the outcome of any decision.  As I visualized the future,  I imagined what it would feel like to cycle for three hours without concern about rushing to my next task, to prepare dinner in a leisurely manner, to travel longer than the typical two weeks. I also started considering my future self, envisioning who I might be in the future.  At various times, I played out different scenarios in my mind, fantasizing what staying two more years in Chicago would look like and feel like. Images of dragging myself through another polar vortex winter with its minus 15 degree temperatures came to mind as did visions of hot, humid summers. I compared those images with what it might feel like to, if the weather or routine got to me, "pick up and go" (a favorite expression of my retired husband). I imagined I would feel free.

But in all honesty, my lived experience also factored into deciding when to make the transition. Life experience is a great teacher and we are lucky if we learn lessons on the first pass. My own mother died of a sudden heart attack at age 55, never having experienced retirement freedom. That early loss was instructive. In more recent years, a beloved brother-in-law passed at age 62 with not much more than a month between diagnosis and death. A much cherished teacher, mentor, clinical consultant and friend died at age 55. We were the same age. Folks my own age were dying, slightly older family members were dying, friends and family members were suddenly challenged by serious illnesses. I understood in a deep way that life is finite, presents without guarantees, should not be taken for granted.  Life is a great teacher. I paid attention to its lessons and landed on the side of now is the time for a transition.